Outdoor Living

Contemporary and very green

Nondescript duplex gets a complete overhaul

View from the street of an eco conversion of a row house in the Point St. Charles area of Montreal.

Photograph by: John Kenney
, Montreal Gazette

As Duncan Morrison and his crew laboured away on the Point St. Charles conversion project last fall, he knew he was working in the right location - in more ways than one.

Not only was the house a prime candidate for a complete overhaul, solid but deteriorating, but the neighbourhood was filled with gentle folk who would offer a shovel or a friendly hello. He smiles remembering Maggie, an elderly woman living next door and caring for her ill husband, who every Friday morning at 10 a.m. would bring over a pot of coffee and neatly wrapped grilledcheese sandwiches for the crew. "It was fun to see all these hardy workmen bubbling over with pleasure," Morrison says.

"There are great neighbours here; that's why we like the Point so much," he says. "Plus this area is being gentrified - it's full of history, near the Atwater Market and near downtown."

Hoping to be slightly ahead of the curve, this is the area they chose when Morrison, a veteran general contractor with a degree in urban planning, got together with entrepreneur and eco-housing enthusiast Paul King to look for properties in which they could invest. They found this nondescript duplex, its lower floor nearly destroyed by tenants and the owner's upper floor in need of more than a gentle renovation.

So along with architect Eric Madjer, they decided to begin Phase 1 of their new business, eco-Habitat, focusing on green building technologies and as many eco-features as they could put into the 2,100-square-foot, three-storey space, transforming it from a duplex into a single-family cottage. The double doors and white brick have been replaced by a prettily red-bricked house with black trim around windows, balcony and the single door with glass borders.

"We're trying to marry green with contemporary," says King. "We're in uncharted territory, but we want to take a new approach."

They've done this by creating what they believe is a premium product - a house with an airtight building envelope due to soya insulation, a heat pump for heating and cooling, air exchanger so the tight seal can allow the transfer of fresh air, low flow faucets and shower heads and dual flush toilets, recycled materials in the metal siding and quartz kitchen counters and a rainwater collection system for garden irrigation.

As much as possible, they've sourced all their building materials locally, including bricks, lumber, gyproc and flooring. "It was our mission to get everything local," Morrison says.

On the bottom floor, they excavated three feet to create an eight-foot high, wellinsulated basement with additional foundation walls that are cleverly covered with deep, hardwood shelving all around the room.

The main floor, reached via the simple geometric, steel railed, hardwood, opentread staircase, houses an open plan living and dining area, filled with light streaming from the front windows - retained in their original form as a government building requirement - and the two-storey back atrium windows.

Creating an open space for living and dining did have its challenges, like where to put the hall closet and powder room. They solved the first problem by creating a free-standing closet made of locally-sourced 12-inch cedar planks, as much a standing work of art as a functional room; and the second by tucking a tiny powder room at the end of the vestibule, the entire floor laid with heated slate tiles.

The 14-foot-long galley kitchen at the side of the main floor features grey lacquered cupboards and quartz countertops, the sense of space given continuity by the same flooring as the rest of the home - seven-inch oak boards treated with waterbased urethane.

At the back of the dining space, looking out over the walled garden with patio, is the contemporary signature of the house - a two-storey atrium-like extension with floor-to-ceiling windows, leaving the falling-down sheds at the back of the original house as a distant memory. Unlike the front of the house, where all the windows and even the original balcony had to be kept intact, and the new brick carefully laid to mimic the old, at the back the owners were able to use expansive glass and create a sophisticated look, right down to the vertical metal siding in pale grey.

The master bedroom above has clean lines and huge closets, though no element of the room commands more focus than the clear balcony wall that separates it from the massive back window. The ensuite bathroom is a combination of comfort and stylishness, with heated floors, a rain shower head and soaking tub, lit by the same style of long, slender window seen below in the kitchen.

This premium house is now on the market - at a premium price of $629,000. "This was not a cheap renovation," Morrison says. "We're focusing on good construction technique and good design."

"This is our first ecohouse," says King. "We hope it will be the first of dozens."

For more information on eco-Habitat, log on to www. eco-habitat.ca or call 514-227-5179.

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